'Sorry' is too little, too late

September 04, 2009|BY JOSEPH L. GALLOWAY, McClatchy Newspapers

Former Lt. Rusty Calley has finally spoken about the My Lai Massacre in terms of his remorse for the deaths of between 300 and 400 unarmed Vietnamese villagers who were slaughtered on one terrible day in March 1968, 41 years ago, and his remorse for the ruined lives of American soldiers he and others ordered to do the killing. The slaughter in a poor, sandy village complex south of Chu Lai and just off Highway One was originally covered up by officers at every level. The cover-up came undone when an Army photographer took his photos and story to a budding muckraker named Seymour Hersh. Of 27 soldiers and officers charged in the murders and subsequent cover-up, only Lt. Calley was convicted. He was sentenced to life in prison. There was a feeling afoot in the country, among President Richard Nixon's “Silent Majority,” that Calley was being made a scapegoat. Nixon first ordered Calley into comfortable house arrest at his quarters on Fort Benning, Ga., and then commuted his sentence. Calley had done only three years in his apartment. The others on the ground that day, including Calley's company commander, Capt. Ernest Medina, skated on the charges. Medina was judged not guilty in his court-martial. Calley's battalion commander, Lt. Col. Frank Barker who presided over the operation from a lofty perch in his command helicopter, ironically had died when that helicopter crashed some months after the massacre. The only real heroes at My Lai were the crew of a Huey helicopter piloted by Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson, who saw what was happening on low passes over the area and several times landed his helicopter between the Americans and clusters of terrified villagers. For his actions at My Lai and for reporting indiscriminate mass killing of non-combatants to his chain of command, Thompson was treated like a pariah and a traitor. A decade ago, his heroism was rewarded with an award of the Soldier's Medal, a special medal for life-saving. Thompson died three years ago at age 62. Former Lt. Calley, a poster boy for what happens when the military lowers its standards to fill the ranks during wartime, for decades was a fixture in the business community in Columbus, Ga.. After decades of refusing all requests for interviews, Calley this month accepted an invitation to speak to a Kiwanis Club in Columbus, Ohio, and there confessed to daily feeling “remorse” over his actions and their consequences. No stale tears four decades later can erase the image of little children's bodies, obscenely posed atop the heaps of mothers and grandmothers in that ditch in Vietnam. Or the evidence that some of the women and young girls were raped before they were executed. In this case I am afraid that a “sorry” near the end of a comfortable life just doesn't cut it, Lt. Calley. I doubt it will buy much leeway on Judgment Day either. Joseph L. Galloway is a military columnist for McClatchy Newspapers. His column appears most Fridays. Readers may write to him at: P.O. Box 399, Bayside, Texas 78340; e-mail: jlgalloway2@cs.com.